KUFR KANA (Israel) (AFP) - After days of clashes, the smell of teargas hangs heavy in the air in Kufr Kana, a hilltop Arab town simmering with resentment after Israeli police killed one of its own.

Although residents of this biblical town in Galilee are trying to resume some semblance of normal life, there is still a great deal of anger over Saturday's shooting of 22-year-old Kheir Hamdan during an apparently routine arrest.

Israel's Arab minority, which constitutes just over a fifth of the population, have long complained of being marginalised. But over the weekend, decades of frustration exploded in anger following the shooting.

"His only crime was to be an Arab," reads a huge banner hung up in front of the family home, reflecting a sentiment unanimously held throughout the town and beyond.

Following Hamdan's death, some 2,500 people demonstrated in Kufr Kana.

Police clashed with angry youths who threw stones, burned tyres and waved Palestinian flags in a show of anger that drew a sharp retort from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We will not tolerate disturbances and riots. We will take determined action against those who throw stones, firebombs and fireworks, and block roads, and against demonstrations that call for our destruction," he said on Sunday.

And he warned he would look into "revoking the citizenship" of anyone calling for Israel's destruction -- a threat clearly aimed at Israel's Arab minority.

On Monday, his Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch expressed his "full backing" for the actions of those who shot Hamdan.

His remarks drew a furious response from Kufr Kana mayor Mujahed Awadeh, who denounced them as "a stain on Israel's democracy."

"If Kufr Kana was a Jewish town, he would have had to resign," he said.

"But this is an Arab village."

In a bid to honour Hamdan's memory, some hung up Palestinian flags and others could be seen wearing traditional keffiyeh headdresses.

Among them was a young man called Farhan Khatib, who said Kufr Kana had been engulfed in an atmosphere of "sadness and fear" since Saturday.

After two days of observing a general strike, shops in this town of 18,000 had reopened their doors and the municipality sent workers to try and clean the streets after the surge of violence as a dozen police looked on from Kufr Kana's entrance.